Into Dust
by the Angel fish and the turtle
Summary: What happens, Dean? to dead Bodies?" stanford era, death fic. Now extended to three parts.
1. Diamonds

**A/N; just a little ditty I've been working on for while now. My muse was Mazzy Star and her song 'Into dust.' please review and tell me what you think.**

**warning- death fic, stanford era.**

**Diamonds**

-

_'it always amazes me how easy it is. No flashing lights, no fanfares. Just one moment your alive and then your gone.' Margret, M.A.S.H_

-

It's late when Sam gets off work. There was a function on-some kind of wedding party-that didn't finish until midnight. His arms ache with the wait of dishes and drinks he's no longer carrying.

It's a short walk back to his apartment, on the fringes of the university grounds. The place is perfect really. A little small, but well located and cheap. None of his classes are more than five minutes away.

Sam's not paying attention, caught up in the image of Jess curled up in their bed, dosing drowserly in an adermant refusal to sleep until he gets home.

Too caught up, in the memoy of yet another fruitless phone call. In the decision that has him both terrified and elated and which can't be finalised until he speaks to his brother.

The man grabs him from behind, his grip firm on Sam's arms. He's tall, taller than Sam, no matter what Dean says about his height being uncanny. He starts to struggle until he feels the barrel of a gun pressed against his hip. Sam freezes.

"Money."

The voice is low, gruff, coarse. The breath on his neck is hot, siding down his collar uncomfortably. Sam trembles a little at the sensation.

"B-back pocket." He's whispers, understanding on some level that quietness is important here. Let the man have what wants, don't cause a scene and he may yet get out of this.

He's aware that's not the Winchester way, but Sam's spent the last year of his life actively rejecting that. For all he cares the thief can have his wallet, anything else, and disappear into the night with nary a struggle.

He feels a hand reach down, a slight pause then a shuffle the man slips the thing away into his person.

The gun slips.

And then…then.

Sam must have miss read the situation, he thinks the man is moving off and he relaxes slightly, pulls away a little.

But suddenly the guy isn't moving, never was, but he's felt Sam pull and panics.

There's a muffled bang and the man runs.

Sam's hand rushes to his side. There's liquid on his fingers warn and dark and spreading quickly. His cloths soaking through. Dripping.

He can't feel it, can't comprehend what's just happened.

And then Sam begins to fall, pavement rushing up to meet him. Sam begins to fall and doesn't stop.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

_Two Boys on a swing set in Michigan, their father across the street buying enough bullets to load eight shot guns._

_The older of the boys is daring- he spreads his legs further, rocks his body more hurriedly. Catches the wind a grin; races it to the sky._

_Beside him the younger is slower, more cautious. His movement is streamlined, but calculated; and twist here, a stretch there. Mind trailing over the actions. _

_He watches the joy, __ plain his brother's face, and hesitates._

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

"_Hey" Sam greets her softly "What are you doing up?"_

_Jess straightens__, her head having been lolled sideways on her shoulder. "Mmm? She hums tiredly. "Just waiting for you to get home."_

_Sam shakes his head, "You know you don't have to do that, right?" He asks softly._

_Jess blinks up at him owlishly. "Want to." She mutters. "Make sure you're back safe. Anyway, can't see less your here."_

_Sam laughs. "Looks like you were doing a pretty good job of it."_

_He leans down, scooping her up in one movement. "Silly." He teases her._

_Jess shifts a bit. "'not." she argues. "And I can get there myself."_

_Sam laughs again, doesn't put her down. "Sure you can." He placecates. "But it's easier this way. Now come on sleepy head. Let's get you to bed."_

_Jess snuggles his shoulder. "'k." _

_Sam carries her off down the hallway. Shutting off the light behind them._

_XxXxXxXxXx_

_When Sam first gets to Palo Alto, he almost turns tail and runs away again__. _

_All the way here he's been stewing, replaying the words his father screamed at him the night of his dispatcher. Making himself angrier and angrier. _

_It's been like a siring full of adrenaline straight into the blood; spurring him on, blocking out all other thought._

_And now…he's crashing. Doesn't know what he's doing here. No friends. No contacts. No place to go. Barely enough money to buy a decent meal in his pocket._

_Now he wonders what the hell he was thinking; chasing this normalcy, that isn't his. That was never his. Wants nothing more than a black truck and a shinny muscle car and the shattered remains of a family he walked out on two States ago ._

_He doesn't know where his family is, what their doing. It's been made clear that going to collage is walking out that door._

_So if he's waked out the door, then John Winchester has slammed it shut. The finality of those parting words he's repeating across his brain, taking on a new meaning, setting down on Sam like a lead sinker. _

_He can't go back, because there's nowhere to go back to, and that hurts more than Sam can possibly say._

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX  
_

Concrete; a physical barrier beneath him. Stable and solid and cold against the parts of his skin that are exposed to the night air.

He's landed, lying here. His decent has ceased.

Cold… and warmth. Sticky on sluggish fingers, scrabbling across his gaping side. Reaching for a phone that's crushed under him.

Sam can't move. He's no more able to reach the phone than he is to rise. To cross the two remaining blocks between his work and apartment.

He tries anyway. He's not ready yet.

He….Opens. Like a flower.

The world focuses into a dizzying, painful clarity and then spirals off, away, down. Like the earth has split around him. A giant, strange tunnel.

Sam falls…

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

_Sam hates his calculus class, it's dank and stuffy and the professor drones on in stiff, dry voice._

_He wishes he'd chosen history instead._

_The first day she sits next to him, Sam doesn't even attempt to take notes; too busy sneaking subtle glances in her direction._

_Blond hair, caught in sunlight, cascading down the curve of her back. A pen, trapped between small white teeth and damp pink lips. Eyes, half-lidded and a soft sigh. _

_Sam's certain of two things; she's an angel and she's just as bored as he is._

_Twenty minutes in she catches him looking and gives up a small sheepish smile. "I can't believe I gave up history for this." She mutters to him "you'd think someone had removed his ability to feel, the way he speaks."_

_Sam licks his lips, nervous "Na," he replies softly. "'s quite normal for zombies to be clinical. Loss of emotion is common in the revival process, see?"_

_The words spill out his mouth, without his permission, and he's horror struck; because he neither believes their professor is actually a zombie, nor would he have confided the knowledge to her even if he did. Whoever she is, this girl is not like him, the screwed up child of a hunter, and now she'll think he's bonkers and sit somewhere else next class._

_He cringes, waits for the look of alarm and the shift away from him._

_But instead she laughs, bright and loud. Bringing a hand up to her mouth in an attempt to stifle the noise and dropping her head a little. _

"_I…" she says still giggling slightly "I'm Jessica."_

_He blinks, surprised. "Sam" he whispers back reflexively "I'm…Sam."_

_XxXxXxXxXxXxX  
_

_When Sam Winchester is six he'd asks Dean what dying is like._

_His brother looks at him, somewhat startled, then his face settles into an uncomfortable look._

"_Why you wanna know that that Sammy?" He asks, curious._

_Sam shrugs__ his shoulders. "Just 'cause."_

_Dean screws up his face and scuffles his feet._

"_Well you know the movie Alice in Wonderland, where she falls down the rabbit hole?_

_Sam__ nods. They'd watched last week at father Jim's, on the one small T.V in his dusty living room. The two of them newly roused from sleep by dawn and settled with lucky charms and the film._

"_Well drying, it's like that. Only bigger." Dean finally assesses._

" '_k."_

_XxXxXxXxXxX_

_Guns on the kitchen table, knives along the bench. This is all so new for Sam, he's only known about hunting three months now._

_The feeling has been like the pieces of a jigsaw sliding together, the how and the whys and the whos finally making sense. _

_Now that he knows, his father isn't hiding anything anymore. Every new motel room he brings out the weaponry, for cleaning, repair, sharpening and the like. Sam's been told by a disapproving looking Dean that he's not to touch any of them. That they're father shouldn't even have them out around him._

_But Sam watches John as he works on them, sometimes into the early hours. Fingers moving slowly with a cloth or a stone or a brush. _

_He __sees the care, in the smooth strokes, sees how it might translate; the of ruffling Dean's hair, whispering them back into sleep. _

_He sees more in his __father's hands on those weapons, than John will ever say._

_But he understands now too, the differences between the eyes of his brother and father, so incomprehensible before._

_Dean's gaze is one of sorrow and worry and age. A gaze Sam feels both smothered and cocooned by. _

_His father's eyes are different, distant__. Full and fury and fire. Sam realises that John's not really seeing him at all._

_Dean looks at Sam and thinks of the future, of the dangers yet to come. John looks at Sam and remembers only the things already lost._

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

Sam's not awake anymore, not really. Awareness is fleeing like so many diamonds.

Is this what it feels like to die? Sam's been close before, a couple of times. Felt the world trickling away in little shining pieces.

And then later, the white, deafening, of a hospital room. Dean, all worry lines and clenched muscles at his bedside.

Sam doubts there will be such memories this time, he feels too much finality.

The Diamonds are bright though, like stars. They catch the light, irregular;

_The__ caress of lips…. _

_Gun powder between tired fingers……_

_The end of a calculation for a math class two years ago……_

He trembles under them, radiant and consuming, and one by one they fall away.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

"_What on earth is that?" She'__s laughing at him and Sam looks in confusion at the tins on the floor._

"_It's yellow…you said you wanted yellow for the bathroom." He offers hesitantly._

_Sam's never completely sure with Jessica, the whole process is too new to him. He stumbles over himself. Movies are his only real frame of reference for this, and he's pretty sure that you shouldn't believe Hollywood on these matters._

_Jess is patient with him, seems to think it's sweet and cute and is generally amused when he screws it up. Sam is forever grateful for this leniency._

"_Butter yellow." Jess giggle, shaking her head. "Not sunshine yellow, honestly Sam."_

_He's perplexed, not actually grasping the difference between the two, just aware that this is another thing he's possibly ruined. _

_He bits his lip. "'m sorry," __Sam mutters. "I'll get the right stuff tomorrow."_

_Jess stops laughing, reaching over to cuddle up to his arm "No don't." she amends. "It's pretty. We'll have the brightness bathroom in the building."_

_She smiles, "And it's stupid when you think about it; butter's actually really strong, not that weird creamy colour. It's an easy mistake."_

"_Really?" He asks, _

"_Y__es" Jess replies almost completely straight faced, but he can see the amusement still dancing in the crevasse of her pupils._

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

_John drives and Dean sleeps, or Dean drives and John sleeps. Sam, __intermittent and licenseless, shares both states with each of them._

_Its__ summer, schools been out a month and their travelling through the heat of the western states; skin slick and burning on the leather seats and the asphalt cracking and sticky._

_John's spent the last four weeks perfecting Sam's aim; knives, guns and arrows. Sam's improved vastly, but the tension between them is still heavy and thick. _

_Sam's fourteen, a riot of hormones and rebellion and displeasure. John's an ex-marine who's seen too much and lived to much and who's far too tired._

_There are words, shared often and__ loudly, words which are rarely true or meaningful. The heat's getting to both of them, stirring and poking already fragile tempers._

_John storms off and Sam storms off, and John drinks and Sam cries- hot, bitter tears and Dean is tight lipped, caught between them._

_Sam doesn't know how to make it better. Isn't willing perhaps, to give up what it might take. He doesn't think John can either._

_And he's afraid, no he's terrified, that it's going to be this, finally, this and not the demon or a ghost or a werewolf or whatever, that rips them all apart._

_And then…Dean gives. Starts playing Metallica softly when he's sleeping and their driving. Leaves Sam most of the Lucky charm; takes over the nightly weapon cleaning rote. _

_The weather cools and they head north. Sam picks up the research for hunts and John settles for the beginning of school with little complaint. _

_Dean says nothing, turns up the music with a small smile._

_XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX_

"_This is Winchester, I'm away right now, so please leave a message."_

_Sam lays his head against the wall and sighs. He shouldn't surprised really. Dean's never answered, not in all the months since he left._

"_Hey De__an. It's Sam."_

_He's stuck at work, it's nearly midnight and his arm aches from service- stupid wedding. It's made him remember and angst over this. He doesn't want to call his brother again, not when he's made it so clear where they stand. Not when he's __refused to talk to him in over year._

_He doesn't want to call again, but he knows he has to, knows he can't do something this big unless he talks to Dean first._

"_Listen I…really need to talk to you. I know…I get that you're still pissed with me, but I…Look this is just really important okay? Just, just call me back…please."_

_He hangs up feeling drained. He's not sure if his brother will call, but he doesn't think he will, is angry and sad and just...over it._

_He's fairly sure Dean won't call him back no matter how many messages he leaves; not until Sam says those words he's so loathed to say over the phone. Those words that will get Dean and possible even John speeding to California._

'_I've been dating this girl, Jessica. We've been together a year now and it's serious. I'm going to ask her to marry me.'_

_Sam's not ready to break this over__ the cell just yet. He slips the phone away and heads back inside._

_There will be time to tell Dean later._

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

The tunnel grows dark, Sam doesn't fight it.

He's been fighting too long. Fighting evil and monsters. Fighting his father and Dean. Fighting to go to Stanford, and to stay at Stanford.

Fighting and raging and wanting and needing.

And Sam thinks it's time to stop. He will go with grace now.

With a soft acceptance lightly draped in sorrow; with fondness and the things he's grateful for, not the things he regrets.

And Sam thinks….Sam thinks that….

Jess, Sam thinks of Jess, lying in wait for him at home, hair sleep rumpled and eyes lidded. Jess laughing over zombies and calculus and the paint he bought for the apartment walls…

And John, far away on his lonely his crusade. Obsessed and saying words Sam's sure he never meant. John the distant, yet loving father, with his guns and his knives and his eyes full of fire….

And Dean, most of all Sam thinks of Dean. Dean asleep in some unknown motel room, face smoothed over and expression gentle. Hands wrapped over sheets in nothing but the lightest grip.

Dean and Lucky Charms; Metallica and the Impala. A swing set in Michigan and an explanation for death.

Like the rabbit hole, only bigger.

Yes, Sam decides, that's about right.

-Fin-


	2. Intangible

**A/N ****Okay since several people have asked I have now extended this to a three part series called 'Into Dust' starting with Sam's POV in the previos fic 'Dimonds'.**

**This is the second story, 'Intangible' and is Jess' POV though centers just as much on Sam and Dean's relationship. I know that this may bore people but to me it was the part that fitted into the center of this work and I won't appolgies for it- it's important.**

**The final segment in this series (still to be written) will be from Dean's POV and will be called 'Dust,Glitter,Rain' (as in the book _Before I die_****- Jenny Downham.) **

**I'm sorry to ayone who wanted a John segment because there won't be one. However I am writing a one-shot called 'the firefly' which will be about John and his raising of Sam.**

**For those who enjoyed 'Dimonds' but wanted it more about Sam and Dean you might like my new one-shot 'Lights.' And also coming for those who enjoyed 'Permanancy' a one-shot called 'Stagnate/ Still Water' (Name under construction lol)**

**In terms of long works, chp 3 of 'APFTS' is in the works and I have the prolog of a supernatural series parallel but AU, to put up called 'A daughter of knives.' Possible one or two others may appear (you know what I'm like.)**

**Anyway here's Intangible, I hope you like it and please take the time to review, it makes me so happy.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**-**

**Intangible**

-

_'what should I say on the shore of a small dead sea? Slowly the water fills the shape of feet which have vanished.' Zbigniew Herbert, Episode._

-

At six o'clock she's in the kitchen, finishing off the stir-fry she's finally learnt how to cook without burning. If it were up to Sam they would live off takeaways every night, (and she has a sneaky suspicion that this would not be detrimental to him at all.) But Jess would prefer not to develop gout or catch scurvy. She likes her curvy four figure too.

So three or four nights a week she's at the stove trying to bring something healthy through the cooking process without it turning from green to black. If Sam's home and feeling generous, he'll give her a hand. For someone completely inexperienced he's annoyingly talented.

Tonight Sam's out, working a evening function down at _Figaro's,_ so she dumps his, limp but edible mess of veg, meat and noodles in the microwave and plops down in the lounge to watch old Buffy reruns.

She wishes she was an awesome vampire hunter.

--

_When Jessica was seven her parents adopted her a large Labrador mutt from the local animal shelter, whom she dubbed Jasper. He was a giant, uncoordinated thing; all paws, eyes and shaggy fur._

_Jasper was two when he came to Jess, and whatever strange life he'd possed before their meeting, was unknown to her. Jasper had been an affiable, friendly creature, but still some part of this otherness had lingered with him always. He'd had habbits quiet unusual and precious for a dog and yet there were other, rather normal things- stairs, cat boxes, delivery boys- that were completely foreign to him. Often her parents had speculated on the nature of this history and how it may account for his actions now. Jess had wondered why it mattered because that was simply Jasper._

_Now at 22, Sam reminds her of that family dog, a strange changling that never quiet fitted and never knew how to fit. She catches him spinning unawear at times, over the most ordinary of situations. Sees dark looks that frightened her roommate once, pass over his expression._

_Jess isn't afraid of Sam though, not the least, and nor does she wonder too often what childhood must have lead him to this disposition. _

_If nothing else Jess knows that what is important is not who Sam was, but who he is, who he is not and who he wants to be. _

_These are the things to place judgement on._

--

At nine o'clock she's board. Buffy finished hours ago and she's not really into whatever reality show's currently on. She mulls briefly over calling Sam since he's probably on his break right now but dismisses the thought- she's not _that_ girlfriend.

She gets a sweet craving. Checks the cupboard and finds the milk and the cookie dough. Biscuits, unlike vegetables are something she is good at, as long as they come from a packet.

She grins, the evening looking up. Puts on a feel-good CD and mixes the batter, singing out loud during the choruses. The artists a young girl with guitar and mushy lyrics. Sam's mocked her more than a few times about liking her.

Alone now, Jess sings all the louder for it.

When she takes the biscuits out- hot and sticky and golden- she snags two, nearly burning her mouth in her greed. She opens the microwave and stashes four more beside Sam's dinner. The rest go in a baking dish in the cupboard.

She beams, _dinner and desert, I'm getting far too domestic. That boy'd better appreciate it_

Jess isn't foolish, she knows how this will go down. Tomorrow Sam's dinner will still be there, the cookies will not.

--

_It's a month or so after they move in together when she first realises. Jess grew up with a two younger brothers, so she's weary of the perils of living with boys- how they drink from the carton and leave dishes in the lounge._

_Sam fulfils none of her expectations. He slips into her apartment, much like he slipped into her life, quietly and unobtrusive. Hesitant, as though expecting some rebuttal, to be pushed out again, or as she sometimes thinks, to be dragged away, if that made any sense._

_His arrival is anti-climatic, unremarkable, but it's impact is deep. Jess doesn't comprehend really how much he changes the world, until one day she's dusting in the lounge and she doesn't recognise half the knickknacks and books. Realizes the fridge is stocked with the beer Sam prefers and that she's blown off two evenings out with friends to stay home with him._

_That without her knowledge and possibly her permission, Sam's become something inextricably important. An epicentre, both in the flat and her life._

_--_

At midnight She's lying half asleep on the couch, the TV playing infomercials and set on mute. Every few minutes she glances at the clock, expectant.

It's become a ritual for her, this waiting for his return. She knows the rhythm of exercise, kitchen wear and beauty product advertisements as well as any insomniac. Jess is only one when Sam isn't home.

Perhaps it's the idea behind the gesture, appealing to her closeted, romantic soul. The sort of thing she'd appreciate someone else to do for her.

Or maybe it's the idea of the big empty bed, two rooms away, where the heating doesn't reach and there is no large body to snuggle into for warmth. She's never liked being alone in slumber but since she started dating she's hated it all the more.

But in the end she thinks it's simply because he allows it of her. Because he lets her cross that final gap in intimacy that she doesn't believe any woman before her has been permitted.

She has no doubt he has been a caring, protective lover to others. This is different; this is how he lets her care and protect him.

--

_After a night with the girls, she arrives home nicely buzzed to an amused Sam awaiting her. She grins at him, moving across the room and halfway trips and knocks a photo off the shelf._

_Jess picks it up, surprised to find faces she doesn't know; two young boys in a grubby kitchen beside a large blue cake._

"_Sam, who's this?"_

_Sam moves up behind her, takes the frame from lax fingers and looks down at it with a smile. "Me." He tells her quietly. "The day of my brother's ninth birthday. We were somewhere outside Johannesburg, I think."_

_She turns to him surprised, "You never told me you had a brother." _

_Sam's expression changes swiftly, an indefinable twist to his eyes and the set of his jaw. "Yeah. His name is Dean, we don't…we're not really talking at the moment. I...He…it's complicated."_

"_Did he…do something to you?"_

_She's puzzled, worried and partly torn, not wanting pry yet intrigued by this revelation. Sam must see some of this expression on her face, heard it in her voice because he shakes his head clearly and defiantly. _

"_No! No. Dean wouldn't…it's nothing sinister, just a family dispute. Dean's really important to me, we…We'll always be close, even if we never speak to each other again. If anything ever happened I'd want…It doesn't matter."_

_It's not enough, and Jess wants to ask more, frustrated by this distance he imposes on himself, on them. She lets it go, breaths out the emotion. _

_This is not her place. Not her right. Jess has known that almost as long as she's known Sam. An unspoken clause in their relationship. _

_Sam loves her and wants her and needs her yes; but she owns only their future. The past, the spaces of his mind in which it lurks, are forbidden. A cornerstone to which, she will never hold any claim._

--

At three o'clock the call comes. For hours she sat here a bunndel of anxiety; rapidly growing terror as the minutes have ticked by and the door hasn't opened and Sam hasn't arrived home.

And then the call comes, surreal and abstracted; exactly like every depiction of it she's seen in flims and t.v and books.

_Miss Moore, this is the Palo Alto Homicide department…_

She is left…breathless. Utterly breathless and without cause or reason. With an ache that is spreading over every facet of her, searing every nerve end and she doesn't know, doesn't know, doesn't know….

_Miss Moore? Miss, we need you toc come down here…the body, it has to be verified by a relative or partner, we…_

Jess wants Sam. Wants Sam helping cook dinner and fighting for the remote and all awkward over that damm paint for the bathroom. Jess wants Sam, **_needs_** him. Needs this all to be some horrific nightmare.

The tears are stinging her eyes and she doesn't wake up, doesn't wake up doesn't…

Deftly, calmly, rationally she changes. Finds her purse, her jacket, keys. Turns out the lights and and locks the door as she leaves.

--

_When Jessica was eleven, Jasper got into a fight and died. The reasons why never to be discovered or understood. _

_She'd found him, curled in on himself along the path back to their house. A destination it seemed he'd been unable to reach._

_Jess had been heartbroken, caught unawear and unexpected, not ready for his loss. She'd cried for days, inconsolable._

_In death, Japser had taken whatever strage nature he possessed with him- he died the way he'd lived secretive, quiet and painfully. Whatevr knowledge and history that had been hidden from her, bleeding out onto the pavement on a mild January evening._

_This is how she sees Sam, when they show her the body at the station (And it is him, is him, oh God!) she doesn't want to, but she finds the parallel holds and hates it._

_Laid out in clinical white and the grey of steel he is suddenly intangible to her; is not the weird and wonderous thing that has dominated so much of who she is for so many months now._

_She sees the body, not the boy and can barely connect the two._

_--_

At six o'clock she's finally leaving the station, washed out and blurred at the edges. She's fallen into an introspective devastation and doesn't know how to get out, what to do now or where to go.

Eventually her muscles lead her to her car and to home. Her mind is lost, elsewhere.

_Sam Winchester: Personal effects_.

She clutches the bag like a life line. It ties her back, to that place and time where he still dwells. Her eyes move over the jacket, the jeans (away from the blood stains) onto the smaller details; key chain and keys, a bright copper ring, wallet and phone.

It's the last of these she removes, absently. Fingers trailing over the buttons, worn smooth by use. By Sam's fingers moving across them the way hers are now. By Sam's touch, as real on this phone as it was on her.

And even though it's absurd, Jess feels a little less like she's drowning.

She doesn't remember entering the contacts list, but she's suddenly confronted by the names, black on glowing green, shivering over her skin.

Jess doesn't know Dean, has never seen or spoken to him, has barely ever heard **_Sam_** talk of him. And she doesn't understand (thinks maybe she never could) whatever frayed and complex relationship they share.

But she does know that it is something- _that Dean is someone_-incredibly important to Sam, whatever communication they currently hold. Could see it in the way he'd stared at their photo and stumbled over words. At the fact the brother he supposedly hasn't talked to in two years is first listed here, before even herself.

And Jess doesn't own Sam, not all of him, and not the part that Dean inhabits. In the past she's speculated that perhaps that is partly why. Sam can't give her everything, because parts of him have already been given away.

The ringing in her ears is impossibly loud, an unknown voice asking her to leave a message. She grips the phone tighter and reachs out to a stranger a millon miles away.

Because he's the closest thing to Sam she'll ever find again.

**-fin-**

**please review and tell me what you think.**


	3. Dust Glitter Rain

**Well this is it, the final part of this series. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed and I hope you like this. I tried my best and my sister really liked it. Please take the time to give me your opinion.**

**Special mention should be made to the book 'Before I Die." Which inspired this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own supernatural nor Jenny Downham's Before I Die.**

Dust Glitter Rain

--

-_-_

Dean's sitting in the Impala, waiting for nightfall with a tremble in his hands he just can't make go away.

Sammy had a violent death. Dean doesn't want to think it. To even contemplate doing _**that.**_

At all, ever.

But now that the idea has wormed it's way into his brain it can't be undone. It slips everywhere like poison. Wrapping over Dean so that he can't breath with the horror of it.

And he doesn't want to think it, but Dean knows what he has to do.

--

_Dean's hung over in the outskirts of Iowa and he only checks the phone because he thinks he might have new coordinates from his father. _

_There's the annoying jingle as the things starts up and then it flashes up with the three missed calls sign. Dean sighs and dials up his voice mail as he stuffs the last of his duffle into the impala boot._

_The first is a quick query from Bobby about a particular ritual that Dean had to perform a few months ago. Mentally he catalogs the information the other man needs as he guilds the muscle car out onto the road._

_The second message is one of ones he's come to dread of late. His brother's breathy nervous voice slides over the wires to him. "Hey Dean, It's Sam."_

_A pause and he can hear an exhale that is almost a sigh __"Listen I…really need to talk to you. I know…I get that you're still pissed with me, but I…Look this is just really important okay? Just, just call me back…please." The phone beeps to signal the end of the message._

_Dean huffs, annoyed and somewhat worried; Sam's called him a couple of times lately blowing open the nineteen month silence they'd held before that. He always wants to ask something, though Dean can't possible see what on earth his brother, safely tucked away at school could possible want from him._

_Perhaps it's time to answer, him muses thoughtfully as he waits for the next message. Whatever Sam needs, it's obviously important._

"_Hi." The voice is soft and feminen, not one at all familiar to him. He thinks he catches it breaking slightly at the end of that short word. "My name's Jessica..you don't know me but, well…" Here a shuddering breath is drawn._

"_I'm your brother- Sam's- girlfriend… There's been a….Sam's been…" _

_A sob and at this point Dean's more fucking scared than he's ever been in his life. _

"_Sam's dead." The voice choaks out at last "And I…I know you weren't talking but he said if anything ever happened to call…"_

_A pause again, so infinate that Dean can feel himself dying between heartbeats._

"_I'm going to organise his funeral, it'll probably be around Monday, so if you could…I think Sam would want you to be there."_

_The end of message tone again, high and continuous like the sould a heart monerter makes when…_

_Dean slams the th phone onto the chair next him, his whole body shaking, bright lights exploding infront of his eyes._

_Then he spins the car, a chaos if screatching and sparks, and thunders in the direction of California._

_--_

_Dean finds Sam at the stair top, his small face grubby and tear stained._

"_I just wanted to look at her picture. He always says today is her day, so I wanted to see her but he just yelled at me." He looks up at Dean, eyes imploring, "Why did he yell?"_

_Dean hunches down beside him with a slight shrug because even he, with all his nine-year-old wisdom doesn't know really._

"_It makes him sad, remembering. He doesn't like to. It's her day, but he doesn't like it."_

_Sam pouts his lip. "And he's drinking. I hate him when he drinks."_

_Dean doesn't know what to tell him. Sam always seems so aware of the fact that he can't remember their mother, like he's to blame for it or something. _

_He wraps his arm around Sammy instead. "She used to love today. I remember kinda; she used to put on this mushy music and tried to make me dance with her. Dad would, and they'd spin around. They broke a lamp once and mom didn't even care, just laughed."_

_Sammy looks up at him, eyes impossibly wide "Did they like, kiss and stuff?"_

_Dean screws up his face. "A couple of times. It was really gross."_

_Sam nods as though something important has occurred in his mega-huge brain, he looks up at Dean, determined_

"_When I get married, I'm doing it today." He tells him firmly and Dean doesn't know what to say to that._

_--_

_Dean hears the door to Sam's room slam shut and he sighs knowing the scene that awaits him; his brother all anger and bitterness and tears._

_Sam's been nearly impossible the last year, since he officially became a teenager and Dean knows sometimes their father finds it so difficult not to rip him a new one with his cheek._

_The problem with that is of course, is Sammy's so dam sensitive, always needing and wanting and waiting. He doesn't understand that not everyone else is like he is._

_Nonetheless Dean makes the effort. Drags himself to Sammy's door knocking on it hard. _

"_Sammy?" he calls out imperiously._

_There is the sound of a book hitting a wall and then his little brother all but screams, "Just leave me alone."_

_Dean glares at the door and shots back "Fine then" angrily and wondering why he even bothered._

_Sometimes he hates having a crybaby little brother._

_--_

The cemetery is dark, quiet. It hasn't taken him nearly long enough to shift the freshly turned earth on his brother's grave.

And Dean doesn't think he'll ever be ready for this.

The funeral was one thing, a horrible, undoable thing but it had been the product of normal. It was a goodbye, but not a final one. Not for Dean.

This is the way things end for hunters. The thing Sam always denied being but nonetheless was to the depths of his blood and his flesh and his bones.

This is the way things end for hunters, and it is the same way it began for Sam, for Dean;

With fire.

--

_He's never been to Sam's place but he knows where it is. He's never meet or known Jessica's name but he's known she exsisted._

_When he rings the doorbell all furry and numbness, he doesn't expect the small blond who opens the door, wearing nothing but a robe and Pjs._

_She looks up at Dean eyes unseeing and she appears as though she's caght in the same horror wave-length that's possesed his brain for the last few hours._

"_I'm sorry" she whispers faintly at last "This really isn't a good time if you-"_

"_Jessica?" Dean cuts her off mid sentence "you… called me?"_

_Jessica stares up at him, as though the sight has penitrated the fog around her mind "Your Dean? Dean Winchester?!"_

_Dean nodds his mouth floundering over words. "Please" he whispers, for once not caring about a show strength "You called…you said Sammy…"_

_He can't finsh the sentence and she survays him as though some strange abstraction in her head has just been confirmed. She tuggs on his arm "You'd better come in."_

_It seems like hours that he sits there with tiny blond Jessica Moore, who is so not what he'd have expected in Sammy's girl. They don't say much, don't really know what __**to**__ say._

_Dean doesn't ask what happened, for once just not giving a dam. Later he knows he'll want to know everything, have vengance and justice driping from his lips but for now he is vacant_

_Sammy is dead and no amount of revenge is going to change that._

_When she at last speaks, it sudden, refracted and Den gets the impression she's not even aware of the words spilling off her toung._

"_He's been saying for nearly a month not to do anything on the twenty-third of May, to keep it free. I mean it six months away so why would I have plans yet, so I asked him why and he wouldn't tell me, wouldn't…and now I'll never know what he ment."_

_Den blinks back to her as she explodes outwards into something huge and deep and unexpected._

"_It means he was gonna propose to you." Dean tells her in a farway voice "he wanted to marry you."_

_Jessica looks at him as though he's become almost as much a monster as she is, and manages a faint "Oh."_

_Dean doesn't reply, caught in another place._

_Any other day of his life the idea of his brother getting married withut his knowledge would heve been intolitble but now he barely feels it._

_A tiny lead sinker weighing him down._

--

_It's raining; the boys are stuck in the apartment while John's away on another hunt._

"_Hey Dean." Sammy pipes up suddenly his young face curious "What happens to dead bodies?"_

_Dean looks at him, grumpy with the bad weather. "They rot and stuff. I dunno. You've been on ghost hunts Sammy, you know they become bones."_

"_Yeah," Sam continues, oblivious to his brother's crappy mood "but what happens after they decompose?"_

_Trust his nerdy Sammy to use a word like decompose. "Well why are you asking me? Look in a book or something."_

_Sam just frowns at him, small mouth twisting. "Ms McFarlin says that everything's made up of bits of dead stars. You know, like nuclear ash and stuff, so I thought maybe we went back to being just that."_

_Dean now vaguely interested despite himself, thinks this over "what, like sand, or dirt?"_

_Sammy nods, suddenly excited "Or maybe those spots that get caught in sunlight. Dust, glitter, rain…_

_He trails off suddenly and as one the both turn to the downpour beyond the window. Sam crawls closer to Dean, his big hazel eyes supiciously bright._

"_Hi Mom."_

_--_

_Dean arrives home to find Sam curled at the kitchen counter, scribbling away furiously in some schoolbook. He barely spares Dean a glance as he greets him._

"_Dad's taking us hunting all weekend." He spits savagely "And this paper is due Monday and Mr. Andrews is already annoyed with me cause I missed the last one when we went up to Randalville. It's so not fair! I'm going to fail English this year because Dad won't let me stay home. It's not like I'm ever any good on hunts anyway."_

_Dean thinks back on the research he and Sam have made into this creature- how it steals toddlers from parks and eats them alive back in his lair. He looks back at his brother hissing over homework._

_Sometimes he really doesn't understand Sam._

_--_

He pours the salt in first, trying not to look at the face that is still too painfully Sammy's. It's only been two days and that's not nearly long enough.

The fluid follows sticky and sickening, soaking through the nice suit Jess has laid him in. pooling at the hollow of his throat and catching on the edge of his eyelashes.

Dean forces himself to look before he throws the match, to look at all of it.

Sammy lying all white and still at the bottom of an impossibly deep cassim as though the earth is making to swallow him whole. Dean forces himself to look and to understand this moment.

He's silent, even in the hollow of his mind for this is a place without words, a pace that occupies to many emotions and images and little broken dream ends; the knowledge of something stolen before he was ready.

He hasn't spoken to Sam for nearly two years now, has been ignoring his phone calls for over a month. Now he will never know what Sam wanted to tell him.

He guesses he always kind of assumed they had time, that one day circumstances would force them to reconcile, to reconnect.

And for this Dean will never forgive himself.

--

_The funeral is beautiful and and tragic and mericfully short. Dean doesn't speak, doesn't have anything to say to a corpse in a wooden box and certainly not to these sobbing kids around him._

_He sees perhapsthough, that Sam was as much loved here as he was in their shadow world but Dean cannot help but be bittersweet at the glory of Sammy's sunlight. He lingers to the edges of the crowd feeling ichy and uncomfortable in his rented black. _

_He's called his father fourty-eight times in the last two days, finally chocking out the words 'Dead' and 'Sammy', about four am Sunday morning. He though for sure John would have speed for Palo Alto as quickly as he had after that._

_But their Father never came._

_Dean instead figits at the side of the headstone as the people say there farewells and head for the wake. _

_Jessica is the last to leave besides him and Dean notices she's managed to fob off the masses of people willing to drive her. She smiles at him tearfully and doesn't ask if he wants a lift, seems to understand that there's nothing here for him to stay for anymore._

"_Could…I don't suppose you'd stay in touch." _

_She takes his silence for the answer it is and looks away, not so much disappointed as accepting._

"_It would have been nice, was all, to be able to talk about him to somebody who understood, but I know there's things you wouldn't, couldn't tell me."_

_She glanced up at him "If I knew anything about Sam, I knew that. You take care of yourself Dean Winchester." She tells him firmly as she turns and heads towards the car that will take her back to the real world. Away from Sam and all the dark and wonderous places he dwelled._

_Dean watches her go, shoulders set, head high and thinks perhaps it is not such a stretch of the imagination to what Sam saw there. _

_--_

_Little Dean is sitting, cross-legged on the waiting room, his small hands fidgeting while he watches Daddy talk to the nurse lady. She looks over at Dean and smiles, before saying something else to his father._

_John walks back over to Dean, his big hand outstretched. "We can go in now champ." He tells him._

_Dean obediently shuffles over to his Dad, unsure in this strange place but excited to see Mummy again._

_Mary Winchester looks up from the bundle in her arms as he walks in, her face tired but delighted. She beckons Dean over with a smile._

_Dean scrambles up onto the bed, curious as to what Mummy has in her arms and Mary cuddles him in close beside her._

"_Dean sweetie, there's someone I'd like you to meet." She runs a hand across his cheek as he looks up at her confused._

"_This is your little brother Dean. This is your Sammy."_

_Dean reaches out a tremulous hand towards the little sleeping thing and an even smaller hand grabs onto it._

"_He likes you Dean." Mummy tells him seriously "You've gotta look after him, always."_

_Dean smiles down at the baby._

"_Sammy."_

_--_

_Dean feels like he's walked into the middle of some horrific nightmare. Sam, duffle bag in one hand, letter in the other and making for the door."_

"_Where the fuck Sammy!"_

_His brother turns to him, face scarlet. "I've already done this with Dad Dean, I'm not doing it with you too. I'm going to Stanford and you can't change my mind."_

_He makes to leave again but Dean grabs his arm, furious "Oh hell no! You do not just get to walk out that door Sammy! How did you think this was gonna go? Why did you think you could do this?!"_

"_You know most brothers would be happy an ivy liege collage was giving their brother a free ride. They'd be proud! They'd want them to go?" Sam yells_

"_Since when have we been most families? Is this what this is about you and your bloody normal crusade? Because I hate to tell you Sammy but that's a fucking pipe dream." The words are perhaps the harshest Dean ever given Sam and he all but spits them with relish. _

_His brother looks at him for a moment, anger and anguish warring in his eyes "You wouldn't understand Dean." He whispers finally. "You never have."_

_With a last wrench if his arm, he pulls free and walks out of Dean's life._

_--_

And so, standing here, on the edge of his little brother's grave, a burning match finally slipping from between his fingers.

Down and down to set the world alight. He doesn't let himself look away.

_What happens Dean? To dead bodies?_

The fire rises hot and bright, expelling ash and smoke and salt to catch on his tear-ridden face.

Dust. Glitter. Rain.

**-fin-**

**well that was it, the last part of the "into Dust' trilogy. I hope you liked it. Please review.**


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